As rains begin to fall heavily in Katine sub-county, farmers are equally busy opening up their gardens for the first season planting.
Nearly everyone can now be seen working on their garden, desperately hoping there will not be a repeat of last year, when a serious drought in the region wiped out harvests and left many people facing serious food shortages. In some parts of the Teso region, where Katine sits, people died of starvation.
The drought undid some of the efforts carried out by the African Medical and Research Foundation (Amref), which is implementing the now four-year development project in Katine, to support farmers. Some farmers had been given seeds through the project, but the crops they produced were destroyed. The drought-resistant variety of cassava planted by some of Katine's farmers was successfully harvested. At the end of last year, farmers had managed to harvest sorghum.
However, according to Amref, it was not just the drought that had an impact on harvests; the fertility of the soil was an issue and efforts are now being directed to find solutions to the problem.
Amref, under its livelihoods component, has set up demonstration plots in Olochoi village to work with farmers to test different techniques to help farmers understand the reasons for poor productivity.
With the help of new farming technologies, farmers are being helped to compare yields resulting from traditional and modern techniques. Farm-Africa, which is giving Amref technical support in livelihoods, hired a local consultant, Joshua Zake, to train the leaders of the 66 farmer groups so they can share information with their group members, who, in turn, can teach others. Leaders will document lessons learned from the demonstration plots, which can then be shared among the groups.
Soil and water conservation practices, use of manure, fertilizer and intercropping are some of the techniques being studied.
Soil and water conservation practices include digging water channels to reduce the force of running water that can wash away the top soil, causing erosion. This technique also helps conserve water in the garden that can then be used to help crops survive longer during times of drought.
The intercropping of legumes and cereals is meant to help maintain levels of soil fertility. Legumes, like groundnuts and beans, add nitrogen to the soil, while cereals, like maize, rice and sorghum, protects the soil from direct exposure to rain.
"The purpose is to ensure soil conservation and improve farmers' yields," said Amref's project assistant for livelihoods, David Ogwang. "Our worry is the repeat of extreme drought like last year. In such circumstances, even these techniques cannot help."
Although the use of fertilizer helps a farmer realise higher yields, the project is encouraging farmers to use manure instead to avoid future damage to the soil.
However all techniques are being examined to help farmers determine what is best for them.